In depth and mini reviews of movies with a sprinkling of nostalgia and film music musings.

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Rocket Attack U.S.A. (1961) – MST3K Review

Summary:

The episode kicks off with
another chapter of the serial thriller, The
Phantom Creeps. When we left our heroes they were plummeting in an airplane
thanks to the cute spider bomb used by Dr. Zorka (Bela Lugosi). Unfortunately
the crash kills Zorka’s wife and this fans the flames of his rage to do evil
deeds. His thuggish assistant Monk (Jack C. Smith) keeps putting the two of
them in more peril and Zorka must use all his gadgets including his invisibly
belt, walking bombs and his huge ugly robot to escape capture. The episode
contains a shoot out and ends with a car containing the bland detective
hurtling off a cliff thanks to Zorka’s ingenuity. Can the madman be stopped in
time?

The feature films starts with
the realization that Sputnik was just hurtled into space by those pesky
Soviets. America is caught with its pants down. No working ICBMs, heck no
working rockets at all! Much scrambling ensues to get something… anything up
into the air. As our scientists flail around (and presumably The Right Stuffoccurs off screen) a
CIA agent is sent on a top-secret mission. His name is John White (John McKay)
and his job is to sneak into Russia, contact an undercover cutie in Moscow
named Tanya (Monica Davis). She’s “seeing” a Soviet general with information on
the space program. White discovers that the Soviets are planning to launch a
missile at New York! Now he must attempt to sabotage the missile and escape
from Russia. But does he have a hope in hell of preventing Rocket Attack U.S.A.?

Movie Review:

No matter how hard you try Joel, you can't
climb out of the theater.

I covered the concept of the
serial in my review of Jungle Goddess,
which featured the first episode of The
Phantom Creeps. Much like that episode this storyline seems thrown
together. Lots of stuff happens, but the plot doesn’t really move forward.
Everyone still think Zorka is crazy (gee I wonder why) and the cops are after
him. We get lots of action in this episode. Planes explode, there is a shootout
in Zorka’s mansion, and you even get a car crash. Lots of stuff happens, and
it’s filmed in that speedy serial fashion, barely slowing down to let you take
a breath.

Lugosi is hamming it up
still, and it works great. His interaction with his assistant Monk is
hilarious. Monk seems eager to help, but is just a bumbling guy. He nearly
blows them all up. We also get to see the robot at work - because he opens a
secret door and lumbers around some more. I was hoping to see him take out some
of the cops, but not in this episode. You also learn that Monk can take seven
or eight bullets, and he’s only stunned. And I thought the robot was tough!

As far as serials go, The Phantom Creeps continues to be
breezy fun, with a lot of completely convenient and silly things happening to
make the plot move forward, and Lugosi is around to keep it entertaining.

"The president called. He said you're the worst
scientist ever."

I’m just going to come out
and say it; Rocket Attack U.S.A. is
a very strange film, even for a cold war scare film. Because make no mistake
about it, this movie is supposed to scare the crap out of you. Yeah it’s got a
heroic spy, yeah it’s got sneaking behind enemy lines, and yeah it’s got a
tepid romance. But what you really get from the film is the futility of
everything. The U.S.A. is doomed in this film because the Soviets have better
technology, and they don’t have a spy who is an ineffectual as Mr. White.

I’m afraid I have to go into
spoiler territory here to really write about this film, so SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! The sabotage attempt fails spectacularly
and the missile comes crashing down on New York. So at least you can say the
film lives up to its title.

Joel tries to convince her to stop dancing.

What fascinates me about
this movie is that is doesn’t take the patriotic “We can win no matter what!”
mentality. It’s a pessimistic film, something you would not have seen ten years
earlier. But by 1961 the film creators just weren’t seeing the rosy glow at the
end of the fallout from WWIII. No, they wanted to scare viewers into taking
some kind of action. I don’t know what that action could be, because based on
what the film shows us, American scientists are morons and American spies are
fools.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. presents
a government flailing around to get a working rocket into the air. They want to
stall the Soviets into thinking we have some kind of ICBM ability. But time and
again the tests fail. I was strongly reminded of the montage from The Right Stuff when the various test
rockets fail in spectacular and silly ways. The budget to this film didn’t
allow for that kind of visual, but lengthy dialogue scenes between scientists
and government officials imply the failure.

Russian high command making a fateful decision.

Mirroring these sequences
are similar scenes with Soviet high command talking about how they need to take
the initiative and bomb the hell out of the Yanks! What is really interesting
about these scenes is that they are performed in Russian. I was really
surprised. This adds a layer of realism to the film, and was probably done to
increase the scare factor. “Hear them talking folks? That is what it sounds
like when they decide the fate of New York in Russian!” A voice over provides
the translation and some color commentary to these scenes.

Since I brought him up, I
should tell you a bit more about the voice over. It is constant. The whole film
is aided by this domineering voice telling us the background to the events and
even commenting on the action. It’s like watching a Centron film about the
start of WWIII. In a way I can see how this was done to give Rocket Attack U.S.A. a documentary
feel. But at the same time it gets to be ridiculous. The voice won’t stop
talking and pointing out things that the visuals clearly show.

But for me the real reason
this movie brings the chuckles is the espionage story. Agent White is pretty
much useless. His story doesn’t have much tension in it, and he pretty much
walks into Moscow without any issues at all. While the Soviet high command
scenes play out in Russian, the rest of the story unfolds with everyone
speaking English with American accents – even the British operative. I’m guessing
that means he speaks Russian or all the Russians speak English… still haven’t
sorted that out.

Anyway, he manages to get
into the least heavily guarded site in the entire Soviet Union, even though a top-secret
rocket is preparing for launch from there. He’s able to sneak right up to the missile
and plant his explosives. But he ends up getting detected at the last minute,
runs away and then gets himself shot. The explosives are removed and detonated
by a loyal soviet soldier in a suicide run (quite literally). So mission fail,
end of the movie, right?

Who the hell are these people? Dead meat!

Oh no my friends. Because Rocket Attack U.S.A. is trying to scare
you, the film switches back to the states. Where we are introduced to a whole
set of new characters: a truck driver, his wife, a radio news broadcaster, his
wife, a businessman and his lackey. We watch these people engage in everyday activities.
The truck driver buys a tie to impress his wife. The news broadcaster reports
about Russia entering peace talks. The businessman talks about how he’s raking
in the cash because of the paranoia. Well, the conspiracy theory becomes
reality as the rocket launches! There’s a panic and a random blind man saying
“Help me” and the reporter reports and the bomb hits and a burning tie and… the
end.

So yeah, that happens.

Rocket Attack U.S.A. is certainly a movie of its time. But it is also an
interesting attempt at honest to goodness fear mongering. It’s fascinating to
watch how the film attempts to manipulate the viewer, and by doing so goes in
unexpected directions. I’ve never seen a film of this era where the CIA and the
power of science in the United States are so impotent. Having the Russian high
command talk entirely in Russian is clever and surprising. Even the “we are all
dead meat” characters at the end of the movie are simultaneously ridiculous and
yet it almost works. It is a unique film in a lot of ways. But it really isn’t
a good one. The low budget hampers many scenes, especially the ones that play
out in Russia. The acting is uniformly weak (and downright bad at times). Much
the dialogue and voice over is unintentionally funny. It’s got a lot of
elements that make it perfect for Joel and the bots.

Episode Review:

That is a flaming tie. It took the crew at MST3K
three viewings to figure that out.

Even though this episode
comes near the beginning of season two of Mystery
Science Theater 3000 it really reminds me of something we’d end up seeing
in season six. It’s got that black and white grim attitude that permeated the
later season with films like High School
Big Shot, The Violent Years or
the ColemanFrancisTrilogy. Is this something Joel and his more casual riffing
style can handle?

Well things get started off
well with The Phantom Creeps. Once
again the boys have a blast with imitating Lugosi and providing extra dialogue
for the befuddled henchman Monk. When Joel sees the opening title he asks the
bots, “Now is Creeps being used as a noun or a verb?” Good question, and one that
is never answered. Later when the grumpy robot is wandering around the lab,
Crow comments that “for a robot he has a flat butt.” He is certainly not as
curvy as Gypsy. I also got a chuckle out of a scene where the invisible Lugosi
picks up a tree branch and sneaks up on the detective. Joel says, “Walk
invisibly and carry a big stick!”

One of these three is not wearing pants. Guess who?

But we also get a funny
running joke that would carry over through the Comedy Central years. Near the
end of the film the detective comes across Lugosi’s abandoned car. As he sneaks
forward a random bit of voice over (and obviously not the actor) says in a
voice that sounds like Ronald Reagan with a head cold, “The driver is either
hiding or he’s dead.” The boys get a kick out of that random moment. From that
day on, variants of that line would come up whenever anyone mentioned Ronald
Reagan during the riffing. Usually Crow would say the line and follow it with
“next on Death Valley Days”.

So The Phantom Creeps gave us a durable callback riff, what does Rocket Attack U.S.A. give us? Well the
movie itself doesn’t move very fast, and that slow pace contrasts with the speed
of the serial. As is the case, the boys do a solid job, but I wish they pumped
up the energy just a bit more in the riff.

One element gives them plenty
to work with. The endless voice over commenting on the action is perfect for
them to just add additional lines or riff right back at. Some of the funniest
parts are little one-liners or words the boys add to the end of the narrator’s
lines.

CIA operative is spotted in about 14 seconds.
It's a new record.

I think the spy storyline
provides the best riffs of the episode. As Mr. White’s plane taxies into a
field in Russia Joel quips, “The White zone is for loading and unloading of
spies only. No parking.” Later on Crow (who seems to get all the good lines
this time) observes that the Russian missile “must be a stealth missile. It
doesn’t cast a shadow.” And he’s absolutely right! Mr. White makes a rendezvous
with Tanya in front of a ruined little building, Crow says, “I’m standing in
front of a shotgun shack in another part of the world.” Fans of Talking Heads
will chuckle at that reference.When Tanya shows up, Mr. White asks her if the British agent gave her
the TNT. Crow answers for her, “Well, he gave me the T and the N, but forgot
the other T. I brought the A.”

The alien monolith observes the action.

The scene where White
attempts to sabotage the missile provides a hilarious visual gag. There’s a
block of concrete standing off to the side of the screen. The shot is lit with
darkness surrounding the block and it appearing to loom over the other
characters. It looks for all the world like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. This causes Joel
and the bots to start singing atonally, just like the music during the scenes
featuring the monolith in the famous film. They would return to this joke in
later episodes and it always cracks me up.

As the film heads into the
third act the music becomes very bombastic. Tom observes, “The music implies
something exciting is about to happen.” Crow replies with “The end of the
movie?” And when it is all said and done Crow observes that “I had no idea the
end of the world would be so boring.” Ah my metal friend, you haven’t seen Birdemic: Shock and Terror yet, have
you?

The host segments for Rocket Attack U.S.A. are an odd bunch.
Most of them have a funny core idea, but end up running way too long. This
movie must be really short. The episode starts with Joel giving Tom Servo a
haircut. Now his round clear dome is a narrow cylinder. This was done to
respond to some viewer feedback that Tom’s rounder head obscured too much of the
action on screen. Keep in mind this was only season two of the show, so they
were willing to give things like this a try. Tom’s haircut only lasted a couple
episodes before it returned to the round shape.

The tin foil fashions also protect from fallout.

For the invention exchange
Joel creates an adding machine that prints results using candy. Perfect for tax
season! The Mads combine the foosball table and water polo to make a
water-foosball hybrid. It looks messy but fun. Check out the little players on
the table, they are dressed like Dr. Forrester and Frank! At the first break
Joel explains the cold war to the bots, and discuss the horrible puppetry fear
of the Charlie McCarthy trials. Lambchop named names and Davey and Goliath
served time. For the next break Joel and the bots play Civil Defense Quiz Show.
The questions and answers are silly and a little bit preachy. When they boys
return from the theater the next time, they find a Russian cosmonaut (played by
Mike) waiting to speak to them. He has robots of his own and makes really bad
jokes. This skit gets so ironic it nearly folds into itself. When the film
ends, Joel and the bots are filled with outrage by the depressing film and yell
at the Mads. This only pleases the evil scientists more.

Monk and Zorka doubt the veracity of this movie.

For me, Rocket Attack U.S.A. is an average episode. The serial is fun, but
really nonsensical. The movie is fascinating in its construction, but as a film
it is pretty dull and not effective. It works more as a curiosity. The riffing
for both of these is pretty good. But I think that Rocket Attack U.S.A. was made for the more energetic and snarky
riffing style of Mike and the bots. If they had tackled this one in Seasons Six
or Seven it would have been gold.

Still this movie did provide
us with one important piece of Mystery
Science Theater 3000 history. It contains the first stinger. The stinger
was a short segment from the film that was shown right after the end credits of
the episode rolled. It was usually a bizarre moment or dubious line read that
isolated from the film is even funnier. MST3K turned stingers into a comedic
art form and there were plenty of great ones through the years. This one
features the random blind man saying “Help me.” The stinger would go on to
inspire others. I’ve seen both the Nostalgia Critic and Obscuras Lupa add
stingers to the end of their reviews for one more laugh.

"Help me."

But even with the addition
of the stinger I can only give this episode three burning ties out of five.

This episode is available on
the Mystery Science Theater 3000
Collection: Volume XXVII.

2 comments:

I've seen the enjoyable badness that is "The Phantom Creeps," but somehow I missed "Rocket Attack USA." This is surprising, as it was very much up my alley in the day. In part this was because I'm of the era when nuclear bomb drills at school were as common as fire drills, and much more exciting for kids (who don't take either very seriously). Movies about nuclear war such as "On the Beach", "Panic in the Year Zero", "Dr Strangelove", et al. were on my view list. I'm wondering if it was given less TV play than other such movies by TV stations for some reason -- and if so, what reason.

Yeah, until MST3K I never heard of "Rocket Attack USA". I know MST3K did find a bunch of forgotten movies for their show. I mean literally forgotten. "The Dead Talk Back" was in someone's garage and when the person found it they went to comedy central to see if MST3K would be interested in it. I think a similar thing happened with "Teenage Strangler". This is an odd little movie that is for sure.

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I'm a writer who loves movies, books, video games and music. Wow, that's pretty generic eh? Been a staff writer for DVD Verdict.com and animeondvd.com. I worked at a video store for nearly 10 years. Still working on genre fiction both short and novel length.